Static Crush {M/M} ✔

Chapter #19

They trundle through the narrow city streets, driving slower than seems appropriate given they're fleeing a den of criminal scrappers, but nobody follows them. It's probable Hale was more trouble than they'd bargained for. He covers himself with his jacket, feeling immodest despite his lack of genitals. Perhaps more so than if he'd had them.

Rayner stops the truck in a side street only a couple minutes away, where a familiar car is parked on the street. It's the rental they'd been hijacked in.

"Wait here," he tells Hale and gets out into the rain again.

Rayner told him to wait, so he does, but it gives Hale restless anxiety to sit and watch his symbiont ferry their belongings from the rental into the truck bed's compartment without help. Even though it would likely draw unnecessary attention for passers-by to see a nude android without a penis carting their belongings in the pouring rain, Hale wrestles with the compulsion to make himself useful somehow. Particularly after all the trouble he's caused.

When Rayner is nearly done, he pulls some clothes out of his duffel bag and retrieves Ophelia from the footwell, covering her with his jacket so she doesn't get pelted by the storm.

Vaulting up into the cab, Rayner hands the plant over. Hale takes her gratefully and wedges the pot between his knees. Some of her early flowers are beginning to wither, but a few new buds still hold the promise of bloom. Hale runs a hand along the stiff, dark green leaves at her base.

He wants to point out the risk Rayner took, but without his vocabulary selection module, it comes out wrong. "You could have fucking died, you know."

Rayner plunges a hand into his pockets, his lip caught between his teeth as usual when he concentrates. "Oh, if it were up to me we'd have left you there, but Ophelia here insisted," he replies, his tone light and airy. Like he didn't just face down scrappers and half-carry a damaged android out of mortal danger.

Rayner pauses briefly, then adds, "I was being sarcastic, in case you didn't catch that. Of course I came back for you."

Hale purses his lips, hoping he doesn't mess up what he says this time. "Thank you."

"Nothing to thank."

From his pocket, Rayner pulls out the implants and modules the scrappers had removed. "Let's get you fixed up before we hit the road. Can you walk me through these too?"

Hale nods. It only takes five minutes to reinstall them. With each, Hale feels a surge of wellness replace the malaise of the past half hour. A return to himself. The first test to ensure everything's working seems obvious.

"Penis," he says unaffectedly.

Rayner snorts. "I take it that means you feel better."

Hale says, "Yes," but while he feels better physically, other more evanescent feelings still plague him.

Rayner holds out the t-shirt and sweatpants he'd pulled out of his duffel too. "Sorry, they'll be a bit small, but better than nothing," he says. "We'll grab you something else when we're further away from here."

Hale accepts them and, feeling bizarrely vulnerable, removes the jacket covering his lap to pull on the sweatpants. As he slithers awkwardly into them, he tries not to look too long at the bare expanse of skin where his genitals once were. Rayner gives him polite space by leaving to program the rental car to return to the depot.

The sweatpants leave a lot of ankle on show, and the t-shirt rides a couple inches up his belly, but it's better than nudity.

Rayner returns, rain dripping from his curls. He plasters his hair back off his forehead and mops at his face with his t-shirt, which is too wet to make much difference.